Trophonius (; Ancient Greek: Τροφώνιος Trophōnios) was a Greek mythology hero or daimon or god—it was never certain which one—with a rich mythological tradition and an oracular cult at Livadeia () in Boeotia.
Etymology and parallel cults
The name is derived from τρέφω
trepho, "to nourish".
Strabo and several inscriptions refer to him as
Zeus Trephonios. Several other
chthonic are known from the Greek world, including Zeus Μειλίχιος
Meilikhios ("honeyed" or "kindly" Zeus), and Zeus Χθόνιος
Chthonios ("Zeus beneath-the-earth"), which were other names for Hades.
Similar constructions are also found in the Roman mythology world. For example, a shrine at Lavinium in Lazio was dedicated to Aeneas under the title Iuppiter Indiges (Jupiter in-the-earth).
Family
In the
Homeric Hymns to Apollo, Trophonius is a son of
Erginus (the king of
Minyans Orchomenus) and brother of
Agamedes.
Pausanias gives his father as
Apollo.
[Pausanias, 9.37.5.]
Mythology
Temple of Apollo
According to the
Hymn to
Apollo, he built Apollo's temple at the
oracle at
Delphi with
Agamedes.
Pindar relates how, once finished, the oracle told the brothers to do whatsoever they wished for six days and, on the seventh, they would get their reward. They did and were found dead on the seventh day.
[Pindar according to Plutarch Consolation to Apollonius 14.] Cicero mentions the same story, only shortening the number of days to three.
[Cicero, Tusculanae Quaestiones 1.47.] The maxim by Menander, "those whom the gods love die young", may have come from this story.
Treasury of King Hyrieus
Alternatively, according to Pausanias they built a
treasure chamber (with a secret entrance only they knew about) for King
Hyrieus of
Boeotia. Using the secret entrance, they stole Hyrieus' fortune. The king was aware but did not know who the thief was; he laid a snare. Agamedes was trapped in it; Trophonius cut off his head so that Hyrieus would not know whose body it was. He was then immediately swallowed up by the earth and was turned into an immortal subterranean god.
[Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio 9.39.4.]
The cave of Trophonius was not discovered again until the Lebadaeans suffered a plague and consulted the Delphic Oracle. The Pythia advised them that an unnamed hero was angry at being neglected, and that they should find his grave and offer him worship forthwith. Several unsuccessful searches followed, and the plague continued unabated until a shepherd boy followed a trail of bees into a hole in the ground. Instead of honey, he found a daimon, and Lebadaea lost its plague while gaining a popular oracle.
Other myths
The childless
Xuthus in
Euripides's
Ion consults Trophonius on his way to
Delphi.
Apollonius of Tyana, a legendary wise man and seer of Late Antiquity, once visited the shrine and found that, when it came to philosophy, Trophonius was a proponent of sound Pythagoras doctrines.
Plutarch's De Genio Socratis relates an elaborate dream-vision concerning the cosmos and the afterlife that was supposedly received at Trophonius' oracle.
Cult
Pausanias, in his account of Boeotia (
9.39), relates many details about the cult of Trophonius. Whoever desired to consult the oracle would live in a designated house for a period of days, bathing in the River Herkryna (also
Erkina), named after his daughter who was a childhood friend of
Persephone's, and living on
sacrifice meat. He would then sacrifice, by day, to a series of gods, including
Cronus,
Apollo,
Zeus the king,
Hera the Charioteer, and
Demeter-Europa. At night, he would cast a ram into a pit sacred to
Agamedes, drink from two rivers called
Lethe and
Mnemosyne, and then descend into a cave. Here, most consultees were frightened out of their wits, and forgot the experience entirely upon coming up.
Afterward, the consultee would be seated upon a chair of Mnemosyne, where the priests of the shrine would record his ravings and compose an oracle out of them.
In the classical tradition
"To descend into the cave of Trophonios" became a proverbial way of saying "to suffer a great fright". This saying is alluded to in
Aristophanes'
Clouds.
Several ancient philosophers, including Heraclides Ponticus, wrote commentaries on the cult of Trophonios that are now lost. Trophonios has been of interest to classical scholars because the rivers of Lethe and Mnemosyne have close parallels with the Myth of Er at the end of Plato's Republic, with a series of Orpheus Totenpass, and with several passages about Memory and forgetting in Hesiod's Theogony. The Hellfire Club once constructed a "Cave of Trophonius" with obscene wall-paintings in which to conduct their revels. The philosopher Søren Kierkegaard references "the cave of Trophonius" when discussing his childhood and later philosophical revelations in his work Either/Or. The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche makes a reference to "Trophonius" in the preface to his Daybreak, alluding to his labor in the "underground" of moral prejudices.
Notes
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Pausanias, Description of Greece with an English Translation by W.H.S. Jones, Litt.D., and H.A. Ormerod, M.A., in 4 Volumes. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1918. . Online version at the Perseus Digital Library
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Pausanias, Graeciae Descriptio. 3 vols. Leipzig, Teubner. 1903. Greek text available at the Perseus Digital Library.
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